


Until Tonight; Until tonight.

by Edie_Rone



Category: The X-Files
Genre: AU, F/M, Glenmorangie, Thanksgiving, what if Scully quit after she was returned from her abduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 16:09:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20509784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edie_Rone/pseuds/Edie_Rone
Summary: On Thanksgiving eve, many years after she'd quit the Bureau and moved on with her life, a widowed Dana Scully remembers the man she'd tried to forget.





	Until Tonight; Until tonight.

She sits alone at her dining room table, the house at last asleep — so many beloveds under one roof, so much happiness — breathing, resting, dreaming together.

She sips at her Glenmorangie; it was what she and James used to drink, when the work of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving was done — pies baked, cornbread ready, onions and celery chopped and stored for stuffing the bird at 6:00 a.m.

She never expected to find herself widowed at 50, and yet. Here she is, two years later; Grace and the twins are just 17 and 16, respectively (christ, that had been a tough year and a half, not too long after the turn of the century -- so many diapers, so little sleep). Per longstanding tradition, Ribbit and Dot — so called because 13-month-old Margaret’s interpretation of “Richard” and “Dorothy” had stuck forever — are staying overnight even though they live only three blocks away on 112th Street.

Rib and Dot have gotten her through this last calamitous two years, honestly. She’s continued to research, lecture, consult, write, save lives; continued to be mother, sister, daughter, Professor, while her very organs rejected this new, James-less reality. She’s feeling healthier now — for awhile after she’d had to bury her husband, she’d been at a weight she hadn’t seen since 8th grade. It was scary, and she felt — _fucking scary_. Like she could draw on that ancient field training she’d had, and lay waste to everything she saw. And for awhile she’d.

Kind of wanted to be given an excuse to.

But her mother- and father-in-law had refused to let her follow their son down. The accident had robbed them all of so much; James had been their only child, and_ by fucking god_ — quoth Dorothy — _they were not going to fucking lose Dana too._

She remembers when Dorothy dragged her bodily into the shower, which she hadn’t visited in nearly two weeks, and washed her hair as tenderly as if she’d been a newborn; how she’d wept so desperately, she couldn’t keep her feet, and Dorothy had held her up. Her own mother hadn’t been that immediate, that real; she’d suffered loss before, was stoic in the face of more, but Dot was new to this, and Dana now believes she owes the woman her life.

Which maybe is why she feels such deep disquiet in her heart; Dot had said late this afternoon, as the two of them moved around the kitchen, “Dana, did you ever love anyone besides James?”

And she’d meant to say no, immediately and truthfully. She _had_ said no, and the conversation had moved on.

But she’d flashed on something — someone — she’d worked very, very hard to forget. She’d seen him as if he’d stood there before her, in her gorgeous 115th Street apartment, leaning against the countertop, 32 and beautiful, casually cracking a sunflower seed in between his teeth.

She’d known him, been his partner, for only a few seasons before she’d been abducted by forces or persons still unknown; upon her return, she’d weighed the alternatives and made her choice. She’d never looked back, honestly never wondered about the what-ifs.

Until tonight;

until tonight.


End file.
